The Heritage
by DelVarO
Summary: Katsuro Rei was always unliked by his village and he never knew why. but one day, he discovers the truth... and the truth's weight. Plenty of OC's and it will feature some canon characters further ahhead into the story. Please review!
1. The big day

**A/N: Hello there! Now before you start wondering, I love the Naruto characters. I really do but I simply don't know if I can write about them. I feel as if I won't pull it off. I might take up that challenge in one of the days but for now, I consider myself as an OC writer. It's easier for me this way. You might also notice some similarities here and there and I have to say, I never claimed to be an original person but I can be one when I want.**

**Now, about this story: It will have plenty and plenty of OC's and you might as well consider this as an AU. Hopefully you will like this since I kind of feel odd about it at the current moment. Anyway, enjoy the first chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own naruto or anything else related to the franchize but I DO own all the bloody OC's and other AU stuff I wrote in here, unless they were already owned before me without my knowledge. But on the other hand… this IS a fan fiction site…**

* * *

Rei was sitting in the classroom with his head lying between his arms. It was taking a lot more time then he expected. Yesterday they all passed their genin exam and now they were to be assigned to their first teams but the problem were that they were waiting in the classroom for more then half an hour now.

'_I hope it won't take much longer… and hopefully I won't end up with a pair of annoying idiots on my team._' He thought to himself as he looked around.

There were around twenty boys and girls in the classroom, the new genin graduates, and they were all talking to each other, eagerly discussing about what they were going to do. Everyone was talking except for him. He was silently sitting and waited.

'_After all, who would want to talk to the freak..._?' He thought sadly. For some reason that was unknown to him, the other kids in the academy never liked him, and those who did try to be friendly, even trying to befriend him always ended up either ignoring him or being openly hostile towards him. He never actually made any friends in the four years he spent in the academy, he sure tried but the result was always the same. Eventually some rumors were spread about him and the other idiots were quick to believe or were just happy for another opportunity to make him more miserable. After some while, he eventually gave up on them and started ignoring them… this turned out to be the most peaceful solution: he ignored them and they ignored him. They weren't bothering each other.

And now he would be forced to spend with another pair who would either hate him for whatever reason or ignore him altogether.

"Great…" He muttered under his breath.

"You said anything?" One boy who was sitting next to him asked.

"No." He answered without looking at him.

A few more minutes passed when the classroom door opened and Kento-sensei entered the room. He moved his hand through his shoulder-length brown hair and looked around at his former students.

"All right everyone, calm down a little." He said to the new genins. He wiped a fake tear from one of his eyes. "First of all, I want to congratulate all of you for passing the exam. I'm very proud of you." Some of the kids cheered. "It would be a little sad no seeing you here every day now, but now you are shinobi of the river, and I hope that you are proud of that." Kento-sensei was rather the emotional type and now he was looking at them with a mixture of sadness and happiness in his brown eyes. He took out a piece of paper from his vest and unfolded it. "And now… I shall assign you to your teams."

He began reading names out of it and everyone waited in complete silence and soon enough he heard his name.

"The members of team four are: Katsuro Rei." Rei made no reaction to that, he was too curious about the next two names.

"Takeshi Kaito…" He heard a boy groan two seats in front of him. He sent him a frown when Kaito looked at him and shot him a frown of his own in return. Kaito had short black messy hair, had emerald green eyes. He wore a simple beige T-shirt and brown shorts, he also proudly wore his hitai-ite on his forehead, unlike Rei, who simply had it wrapped it around his neck.

"And Okarashi Miyu." Both Rei and Kaito looked to their right to see a very agitated blond haired girl sending both of them glares. Rei released a sigh and Kaito groaned once again. She wore a white short skirt and pink sleeveless shirt and her blond hair was hanging down along her back down to her elbows. If stares could kill, He and Kaito would've died by now. She clearly wasn't happy about the choice of her team, but at least she didn't protest.

The only advantage of being alone was that he could always listen and no one would bother him for it, and he did exactly that. While most of his other classmates didn't know anything about him, he knew more then enough.

Kaito came from a normal family, which already produced a handful of rather successful shinobi. He was loud, always said what was on his mind but he was rather nice. It was no surprise that he would graduate since he was one of the top students in the class.

Miyu came from a noble family, a clan which was part of the council, and she was damn proud of it. She was somewhat arrogant because of it and she always bossed around, but it didn't matter… it was well known that more then half of the boys in the class were after her since she was, and even Rei couldn't deny it even though she didn't attract him, beautiful. It seemed that Miyu was also aware of it since it was common to see her asking a lot of favour from those particular boys, and unfortunately for team four, Kaito was one of them.

"Alright, all the teams please come here and I will tell you where you will meet your sensei." Kento shouted above the renewed conversations.

Rei stood up and walked over to his former sensei with Kaito joining them. Miyu came to them a minute later.

"Team four; you will meet your sensei in an hour in room number 255. Good luck" Kento cheerfully said to them.

The three of them left the room and walked outside of the building. It was a silent walk but once they were outside Miyu turned around and looked at the boys. '_Great, I'm stuck with the silent weird kid and the annoying Kaito.' _She thought.

"Now listen to me carefully. If you will start annoying me, you will be sorry for it." She said and pointed at Kaito. "Don't even think about asking me for a date again because this time I will hit you harder." She finished and pointed at Rei. "I don't know who you are and what you think about me but don't get in my way and don't even_ think_ about asking me for a date."

"Whatever. I'm still shocked to see how many guys would want to date such an annoying and loudmouth girl like you." Rei said to her and started walking away. Kaito started laughing at Miyu's incredulous expression. She in return punched him.

"Where are you going? We need to meet our sensei!" She asked Rei.

"We have an hour. I don't live far away from here and I want to grab something to eat and change my clothes. Ill see you there." He said without turning around.

"Good idea, I think ill go eat something too." He heard Kaito say.

"Just don't be late. I don't want our first impression to be of a lazy team full of idiots." Miyu cried after them and Rei could feel her gaze on his back.

* * *

He calmly leapt from roof to roof. It weren't just the kids at the academy, but also the adults seemed to not like him very much, he took every opportunity he could to avoid them.

This was Kawagakure, the village of River. The three greatest rivers in the land of Stream met here in this village. As he jumped he looked at the view afforded to him. He loved how it looked and in his opinion the village was the most beautiful place in the world, the rows of buildings, the three rivers connecting in the distance, sparkling in the sunlight and the miles of forest that surrounded them. Finally after a few minutes he landed in front of the door to his apartment. He entered into a single room with a small kitchen and a bed near the window.

Rei grew up in the orphanage, his parents were said to die in the war against Rock that took place twelve years ago. Now, he was thirteen and he finally became a ninja. Now he would be considered as an adult by everyone, though he considered himself an adult the first day he lived in his own apartment. He opened his closet and took out his favorite outfit: a gray shirt with long sleeves and black shorts. He scratched his short brown hair and looked at the mirror which was hanging on the wall. He had smooth skin, black eyes and his hair was a total mess.

He decided to eat, take a shower and change his clothes before he would go to the meeting.

* * *

"You're late!" Miyu almost screamed while pointing an accusing finger at Rei.

"Just by five minutes." Rei defensively said.

"Alright, quiet down, now we can begin." Said an unfamiliar voice and Rei turned to look at the source. On a chair was sitting a young man, in his late twenties. He had short spiky blond hair and a jonin's vesk. He had brown eyes and the expression that was on his face was lazy. Rei counted three scars on his new sensei's face. The older man stood up, yawned and stretched his back. Rei took a seat near Kaito and waited for their sensei to begin. The blond looked at all of them, taking a minute to look at each of them.

"Hmm… you don't look so promising." He finally said. It took a moment before the words registered within his new student's heads.

"WHAT?" Miyu practically screamed at him and stood up. Kaito seemed angry but didn't say anything. Rei frowned at the man.

"I said that you didn't look promising. Now, if you would be kid to sit I want to begin this mess." He calmly said without losing ground. _'This might be interesting after all.' _He though and suppressed a grin. Miyu sat down with a frown.

"Okay, my name is Hideki Hayato and I already know your names but I guess that you need to introduce yourselves and tell me why you decided to become a ninja. The angry girl, you're first." He said and looked at Miyu.

"My name is Okarashi Miyu, I'm twelve years old and I wanted to become a ninja because one day I'm going to lead my clan and I have to be strong by that time." She cheerfully said but still wore her frown. _'Great, at least she has a goal in her life other then boys._' Hayato thought. "Now you, happy looking kid." He said in Kaito's direction.

"I'm Takeshi Kaito, I'm twelve, I love eating and training. I became a ninja so I could become a better ninja then my brothers and defeat them in battle!" He said with a wide smile on his face.

'_At least he would want to learn something if he loves to train…'_ Hayato wondered and looked at the last one of his new team. "And now the silent kid." He said and Miyu chuckled. Rei sent her a flat look which only made her laugh harder.

"I am Katsuro Rei, I'm thirteen and I love to sleep and eat. I became a ninja so I could make the people who ignore me to finally notice me and… that's it basically. Maybe ill find something else to do on my way there." He said and Miyu laughed again. Rei frowned and looked at her.

"Who is ignoring you? You are the one who always ignored us and always slept during the classes." She said while laughing. Kaito nodded his agreement. Rei snorted.

"Is that so? Now tell me please, did any of you ever tried to have a decent conversation with me before today?" He asked them and it was his turn to grin when Miyu stopped laughing and Kaito raised an eyebrow.

"N-no… but that's because you ignored us and everyone say that you are weird and that we shouldn't talk to you!" Miyu said in defense.

"And why is that?" Hayato asked. He was sitting on the edge of his chair with his chin in his hands looking at the exchange of words with more then curiosity. Rei looked at Miyu, waiting for her answer.

"Its, it's… just because! Even the adults don't like you." Miyu quietly said.

"Lovely. You don't have to like me but I _am_ on your team now and there's absolutely _nothing_ you can do about it now. Rei said and looked away from here. Hayato looked closely at Rei. For a moment he noticed him wince when he listened to Miyu's words but it was gone after a second. _'Interesting… I think I should ask Kento about him. He seems normal to me.' _He thought to himself and stood up before that conversation would become into an argument.

"Fine, from the files that Kento gave me I see that Kaito was the 3rd top student in your class, Miyu is right behind him and Rei is somewhere in the middle." Kaito gave a wide smile at Miyu who sent him a threatening glare.

"Meet me in training ground five in…" He looked at his watch. "Half an hour… Don't be late this time, I'm a very busy person," He said with a cheerful smile and disappeared with a '_pop_' and a puff of smoke. The three teammates sat there and looked at the empty chair.

"A clone?" Kaito mumbled.

"He didn't even come here to meet us in person?! What a lazy jerk!" Miyu cried and stood up. For the first time the whole team agreed wholeheartedly. They all stood up and left the room.

Soon enough they were making their way to the designated training ground. Rei noticed the looks the people gave him. It was a look of disapproval, as if he did something wrong but he was sure that he didn't do anything that would've cause such a treatment. He tried to ignore them but the looks were everywhere. Rei moved his hitai-te a little, to make it a little more noticeable. He wanted them to see that he was now a ninja of the river. Maybe now they would show his some measure of respect.

They walked quietly through the streets until the buildings were suddenly gone and trees replaced them. They were out of the village and they were heading into the forest. They all knew where the training grounds were, it was a common knowledge in the village and soon enough, they finally reached training ground number five. It was a round two mile area surrounded by a fence and in one of the entrances they spotted Hayato, who was leaning against the fence while smoking a cigarette.

"Smoking is a bad habit." Kaito said with a frown.

"Tell that to my mother." Hayato said and motioned them to follow him.

They followed him to one of the other entrances of the fenced forest. After five minutes they stopped in front of one of the gates. Hayato stopped and looked at them.

"Why are we here?" Miyu asked him.

"Why? Well, you are here for a little test." He said with a wide smile and for some reason they felt that they shouldn't like that smile.

"Lovely…" Rei muttered under his breath but he was loud enough for everyone to hear.

* * *

**Okay, the first chapter is over. I would be very glad to receive a review and to hear you out on what you think about it. Tell me what you think, if you spotted any flaws or anything, what I can make better, anything to fix, general suggestions and feel free to ask any possible questions, I will be only glad to answer. This is only my second anime fan fiction so I'm still kind of new to this. I might continue with this to the end but it depends on how everything will turn out and about the general support.**


	2. The Test

**Author's note: Okay, this one is a little longer, but it doesnt really matter. i hope you liked the last chapter and i hope you will like this one, because its going to get better from here on!**

* * *

"What kind of test?" Miyu asked.

"A simple one," He said while still wearing that smile. "In this two mile zone there a large clearing directly in the centre. All you need to do is get there and take a flag and you pass. You have one hour to take get it. You will enter in… five minutes." He said and lit another cigarette,

'_Something is wrong… an hour is too much for clearing a single mile, unless…'_Rei thought to himself. _'I guess I should warn them.'_

Miyu and Kaito were already discussing about a tactic. He stood near them and cleared his throat. They both turned to him.

"I think that I should warn you. This looks way too easy." He said to them and Miyu rolled her eyes.

"It's quite obvious. We already figured that out. Just sit back and follow us and don't lose us in there." She said to him and turned back to Kaito. Kaito gave a defeated look to Rei and shrugged. Rei just sighed and decided to stay silent, this girl needed to be taught a lesson; if she fell into a trap she would deserve it. He still listened to them though.

They planned to rush to the centre by leaping through trees and avoiding staying on the ground. Sounded like a good plan but it was still looking too easy for Rei. They were trained to identify traps, and it would still take them less then an hour to reach the centre unless every inch of the training ground was filled with every possible trap. Eventually Hayato coughed and said that it was time. He opened the gates and team four entered the training ground. Unknown to the three of them Hayato silently followed them once he was out of their sight.

* * *

Five uneventful minutes into the test they were leaping from branch to branch. Rei still couldn't let go of the thought that it was too easy but he didn't bother with telling his teammates. They all jumped in a line formation, Miyu was at the lead and Rei was at the back.

Miyu was obviously thinking this was too easy, and eventually she let down her guard and that cost her greatly. Kaito shouted her to stop but it was too late. Miyu jumped straight into a trip wire that was stretched between two trees. There was a loud 'pop' and the wire wrapped itself around her. She was unable to do anything but to drop ten feet to the ground and land with a groan into some bushes.

Kaito was about to jump down when Rei placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Wait… just look around." He said to him. Kaito listened and looked around and noticed what Rei was talking about. The whole area was filled with these trip wires, it was hard to spot quickly but he noticed them after a prolonged view, they weren't hidden very well. They were harmless but they were sure to slow them down.

Rei slowly climbed down the tree and carefully paced through the bushes until he reached Miyu. She looked at him with an annoyed expression and waited for him to say something. But he didn't say anything; he just took out his kunai and silently released her.

"Be careful next time." He whispered to her. She didn't say anything to him in return but only watched him as he climbed back up into their tree branch.

"We can't pass through here fast enough; we will have to make a detour." Kaito said sourly.

"But a detour could take us too long." Rei said and looked at the tripwires. They seemed to be everywhere.

"So what are we going to do?" Miyu asked once she got up on their tree branch. Rei had an idea of his own.

"You two go and take the detour, ill try to pass through here. Either way, one of us is going to get the flag." He said it with a smile and watched as Miyu stared at him incredulously.

"So you want to abandon us?" She asked him. Rei was starting to dislike her already.

"No you baka! That way we're going to get this flag no matter which way we go!" He calmly said.

"He's actually right, you know if we split up now we have a better chance." Kaito said before Miyu could start arguing. Rei looked at him with surprise. Rarely anyone defended him or said that he was right.

"Fine, we split up. Meet you at the flag." She said and leapt away. Rei smiled to himself and nodded to Kaito who leapt after Miyu.

He closed his eyes and concentrated and flowed chakra into his eyes. Soon enough the familiar rather painful sting appeared in the back of his eyes and he was soon enough able to see something. Everything was black except for two blue forms which looked humanoid. These two were Kaito and Miyu. He kept on looking around until he saw something which proved his suspicions: three additional forms. They weren't alone in here. He chuckled to himself. _'So this was the challenge in this test, to get the flag before the other teams.' _He said to himself in his head. He wasn't sure of how many teams participated in this challenge but he knew what he had to do now. He opened his eyes and winced in pain. The sunlight was painful for him for a minute but then the unbearable brightness faded away.

He didn't know how exactly he did this technique but if he channeled chakra into his eyes, this always happened. Unfortunately, he had to do it with his eyes close, which blinded him completely but enabled him to see chakra. When he first learned to do it he was blinded for several hours because he activated it with his eyes open. And he didn't really want to try using this technique while moving in a forest… while it allowed him to see chakra, it _didn't_ allow him to see obstacles such as trees, in other words, it would be the same as running with his eyes closed into a forest.

With another chuckle he leapt away in the direction of the other team. Time to get to work, he will pass this test.

* * *

Hayato was surprised to Rei jump into a different direction. He heard them talk about splitting up and they agreed that Rei would move through the tripwire traps, but now he moved in the opposite direction. _'What is he doing? Might be interesting though…' _He smiled to himself. Usually it was rather boring with genins but it was becoming more interesting! He went through several hand seals.

"**Kage bunshin no jutsu!"**with a puff of smoke another Hayato appeared and jumped after Rei while the real one followed the rest of team four.

* * *

Twenty minutes passed since they split up with Rei. Now they were getting closer to the centre and they knew that they weren't far away from it. The traps were not laid so tight now and the density of the forest was much lower.

Kaito and Miyu jumped from branch to branch, taking their time between leaps. Miyu was much more cautious, she didn't want to repeat her last mistake.

"Do you think he's okay?" Kaito suddenly asked.

"I don't know, why do you ask me? Most probably he's in a trap of sorts shouting for someone to rescue him." She said with a chuckle.

"You know something? You are acting like a complete bitch." Kaito said to her without even looking at her. That caught Miyu by surprise. No one has ever talked to her like this.

"What?! What did you say?" Miyu almost screamed at him.

"Yes, you are. If you want us to get along you should change your attitude because im not going to put up with you any longer if you keep acting like this." And with that Kaito increased his pace and left Miyu behind pondering in thought. _'I wonder what he's doing…'_ She thought when she remembered Rei.

* * *

'_Damn, this kid is moving way too fast for a genin fresh out of the academy!'_

Hayato found himself actually having to try to keep up with Rei. Something was weird with this kid, and he was eager to find out what it was. First of all, he found out about the other teams faster then he expected though in truth he didn't expect him to find out about this before they would've reached the flag and the second thing was that he knew where the other teams were.

This was the third team he was going to encounter.

* * *

Rei silently sat on one of the higher branches, staying well hidden and out of sight. He managed to get here in time to 'tweak' some of the traps a little and place some of his own. Soon enough he saw his planned targets.

* * *

Jin, Kazu and Karin were carefully jumping from branch to branch.

"Damn, so many traps on the ground… it would take us hours to get there!" Kazu whined and Karin grunted.

"Cant you shut up? You've been whining ever since we got into this place!" Karin said in amazement. Jin sighed. Maybe Kazu was whining but Karin was arguing with him the whole way here every time the boy opened his mouth.

Jin was a tall boy with short dark brown hair and he wore a forest green camouflage jacket, green shorts and his hitai-ite was proudly on his forehead. Karin had black hair gathered in a long pony-tail and wore a black shirt which was a couple of sizes smaller for her, revealing her belly and a pair of black knee-length pants. Kazu's black haired head darted in every direction, searching for traps and anything else that might cause trouble. He wore a white jacket and khaki shorts with his hitai-ite tied around his left arm.

"Cant you stop arguing? You're distracting me; since I'm at the lead I think we should silent and allow me to look ahead without hearing you two." Jin said in an angered tone but exactly at that moment he felt something tug his legs and when he looked down he saw that his ankles were tied by a wire.

He desperately looked ahead, at the closest branch he had available. With his momentum, hopefully he would be able to catch a hold of it before he dropped down. He was almost there, almost in hand reach but then he felt his momentum abruptly end and he dropped down. The ground was closing fast; too fast actually, there was no time to do anything else. He heard Karin cry his name. Then, to his surprise he suddenly stopped, rather painfully for his ankles, just a few feet above ground, now hanging upside down. He looked to see the wire firmly holding him suspended. Jin was swinging back and forth and he was starting to feel his ankles going numb so he shouted to his team.

Kazu released a relieved sigh. She and Kazu jumped down to help release their teammate. Jin was looked at the floor 'above' him curiously. _'Why there are so many leaves here?'_ he asked himself but the answer came too late.

"No! Sto-" He warned but didn't manage to finish the sentence.

Karin and Kazu landed near him and exactly a second after a large rope net erupted from the pile of leaves beneath their feet and lifting the trio up, leaving them hanging ten feet above the ground.

'_At least I'm not hanging from my feet anymore…'_Jin thought and tried to move himself to a more comfortable position.

"Get off me! You're heavy!" Jin heard Kazu from somewhere to his right.

"_I'm_ heavy one? Why you little…"

"_Ow_, why did you do that for?" Kazu whined. Jin ignored them; he was more interested in trying to get out of this net. He struggled to get a hand into his pouch to take a kunai but he found his pouch empty. He looked down and between the leaves he saw his ninja gear lying scattered around. "Crap…" He muttered to himself. "Give me a kunai." He said and squirmed around to turn to his companions. To confusion, they both looked up, Kazu with a confused look and Karin just looked infuriated, he followed their gaze.

Just above them, Jin saw a boy in a grey shirt casually leaping down. He landed a few feet away from them and looked at them.

"Sorry about this, I hope you didn't wound your legs." He spoke to Jin.

"So you did this?" Jin asked. He fought to hold back the smile that was beginning to form on his mouth. _'I didn't expect to be put up against other teams so soon.'_

"Yeah… sorry about this again…" He said and scratched the back of his head.

"Aww, I can't believe this! We fell for the oldest trick in the book of traps, and by Rei!" Kazu said with a shake of his head. An angry growl from Karin broke the awkward silence that followed.

"I'm _sooo_ going to kill you when I get out of here…" She growled through gritted teeth.

"I doubt that, you will have to catch me first. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get to the rest of my team if they didn't get the flag yet." He looked at his watch. "Fifteen more minutes left." And with that he turned to leave. Jin was still curious.

"How many teams are in here?" He asked him. Rei turned around and looked at them again.

"Ehm… I encountered two teams, without counting you guys. You are actually the first ones to fall into a trap I made; I just kinda 'mislead' the other ones and they won't make it on time now."

Kazu muttered something that sounded like 'so embarrassing' and Karin was trying to tear apart the net. Rei sent them a last smile and leapt away.

"Aargh! I'm going to get him!" Karin growled and took out her Kunai.

* * *

Kaito and Miyu were hidden in the underbrush, silently looking around for any possible traps or worse. Just as Hayato said, there was the clearing, which was around 500 meters in diameter. It was halved by a small river exactly in the middle and just at the bank they saw their target: a bright red flag.

"I think its okay, I don't see anything." Kaito said nervously. For once Miyu didn't feel like arguing.

"I don't know… looks weird. I would've thought that Hayato would've been here to meet us and it looks… too safe." She said quietly with a little worry in her voice. Kaito nodded.

"But we have only a couple of minutes left… the only way we can find out for sure is going there." He thought out loud. He was still rather shocked that it took them almost an hour to reach here. This clearing was surrounded by a ring of traps that would've either slowed them down too much or would've forced them to find an opening. Luckily for them, they found one rather quickly.

"Alright… were alone here. Just… be careful. I don't want to pull you out of another pit trap." She said with a grin. Kaito muttered something under his breath for her reminding him of the trap they encountered a few minutes ago.

They slowly stood up and Miyu started a countdown. When she finished it they quickly ran out of cover but to their relief nothing happened. They were halfway to the flag when something weird happened. Miyu suddenly tripped and fell down on her face. Kaito stopped and turned around to help her but then he felt it too. A sudden powerful wave of dizziness flushed him and he struggled to keep standing on his feet. He noticed that he was seeing triple as he saw three Miyu's lying in the grass in front of him.

"What the…" He mumbled as he tried to stay up. He felt the urge to vomit and he couldn't resist any longer. He stumbled down and felt near Miyu. Kaito tried to get up but he couldn't move his arms. His head was spinning and he wasn't sure if he could keep staying wake for much longer. He was slightly relieved when he saw that Miyu was still awake and she was trying to get up as well, but only met similar results. He froze when he heard laughter coming from somewhere out of his field of view.

"Wow, I haven't expected these idiots to just make a run for it." A guttural male voice said.

"I hope I didn't hurt them too much… I don't think that sensei would approve of this." A more worried feminine voice said.

"Relax, we are ninja aren't we? Ninja's aren't playing fair all the time." The first voice said. At that moment Kaito felt someone grab his arms and legs and tie them together, like they did with an animal. He struggled to say anything but as he saw it now, his brain was a jumble and he couldn't make any understandable words and instead he made some indiscernible sound, which drew some laughs from their captors.

"Hey… I thought the teams were made of three people… so where's the freak?" A calm male voice said. At that point Kaito began to notice that the dizziness was fading and he could almost see normal now. The one who was tying him up finished his job and started working on Miyu. He felt a leg turning him on his side and now he was able to see them.

He recognized one of them as Nagaro Hikari. He was around six feet tall and had a completely bald head. He wore an opened black vest with nothing underneath it, revealing his chest and knee length khaki shorts. If Kaito hadn't known it, he would've presumed that he was _at least _sixteen years old, because he didn't look like a fresh academy graduate. He was very muscular; at least it was the most fitting word to describe him. He had a round face and his green eyes were looking at him, with the addition of a smug smile.

Kaito also recognized the one who was tying Miyu. It was Garukane Jochi. He wore a black jacket and dark brown shorts. He couldn't see his face because of the slick black hair that was hanging down from his head, hiding his face but he could guess that he had the same smile that Hikari had. If Kaito and Miyu could find a single word to describe the pair, it would be 'Jerks'. In Kaito's opinion, they were an obnoxious bunch, caring only about themselves. Kaito himself got into a fight with them more then three times; they usually bullied everyone back in the academy, though in the last year they sort of stopped their menacing.

He then noticed the third member of their team, it was Hanaro Aiko. She wore a simple white long shirt and tight dark blue shorts. He long waist-long brown hair was framing her, Kaito couldn't deny it, beautiful face. She was standing in the back of the group looking quite displeased with the situation. She looked Kairo in the eyes but remained silent, but the look on her face was screaming 'I'm sorry!' to him. Kaito sighed, he would've preferred being stuck with Aiko on his team… she was so much nicer then Miyu, though if Miyu heard him actually say that she might kill him.

Hikari laughed. "The freak probably ran away. This test was too hard for him!" He said with a wide smile. Kaito knew who they were talking about, and he hoped that they weren't correct with their assumption.

"L-let us go…" Miyu groaned. Jochi laughed on her.

"Sorry, we can't do that. We have a flag to get." He answered.

"Too bad we couldn't get the freak. Would've been fun to kick his ass…" Hikari said.

Kaito struggled to free his hands out of the ropes that tied them to his feet. He started growling as he pulled he hands, trying to ignore the stinging pain that he caused to himself. His attempt of releasing his hands only earned his a kick in the ribs from Hikari. He groaned in pain and stopped struggling, but kept sending death glares at the big boy.

And then… all hell broke loose.

Aiko yelped and pointed at something that was behind Kaito. Jochi looked really surprised and looked at the same direction and then out of nowhere, dropped Rei, delivering a kick in the head to Jochi. He then used Jochi to jump again, this time spinning wildly, and deliver two kicks to the face of Hikari. Both of the boys landed a few feet away and Rei gracefully landed beside Miyu and Kaito.

The same thoughts crossed through Kaito's and Miyu's heads: _'What the hell just happened?'_

Aiko began forming hand seals and when she finished Kaito could feel the dizziness coming back again, however Rei acted faster.

"**Kai!" **He calmly said and the dizziness stopped. Aiko looked even more surprised when Rei became a blur and appeared near her in a split second, placed his leg behind hers and pushed her, causing her to fall down. She looked at him with a scared expression stamped on her face, what made her even more nervous was the completely calm expression Rei had.

"Please don't try to stand up, and don't try to use that genjutsu again. I don't want to hurt a pretty girl like you. Even if you're stuck with complete idiots as your teammates, I don't think that you're like them." He said. Aiko blushed a little when he called her pretty but it wasnt enough to beat the sting of defeat that she felt now. Rei turned around and started walking towards the flag.

"HEY! Aren't you going to untie us?!" Miyu shouted all of a sudden, the initial shock of Rei's appearance all gone now.

"Just a second, ill just take the flag…" She heard him say, which only made her angrier.

Rei was near the flag when Hayato landed in front of him.

"Now… if you want to take the flag… you will have to go through me." He said with the widest smile Rei has seen so far on his teacher's face.

* * *

**Well, looks like Rei is more then meets the eye... what will Hayato do about it? you will have to wait to the next chapter to see. Tell me what you think, leave it in a review! :D**


	3. Black Marks

**Authors note: **Okay, here's another chapter. hope that you are liking this story :D.

* * *

Hayato still had his smile on his lips even after an awkward moment of silence passed through the forest clearing.

"Err… what?" Rei finally recovered and asked. Hayato blinked.

"I said that if you want to take the flag, you will need to beat me first… but because you are just a genin and not experienced enough I will handicap myself. I won't move and won't attack, though I will counter your attacks if I would want so." He answered and the smile returned.

'_Damn… I don't think ill beat him easily, if ill beat him at all. He's a Jounin and even if he doesn't look strong, he didn't reach that rank for nothing…'_ Rei though and tried to choose his course of action.

He turned his head and looked at the still tied Miyu and Kaito. After another moment he decided what he would do.

"Okay… ill kick your ass!" He said with a smile of his own.

'_He he, he got some confidence… I guess ill have to knock it out of him the hard way._' Hayato mused.

Rei dropped into his fighting stance, which raised more then one eyebrow.

"W-what is that?" Kaito asked while trying to wringle himself out of the wire.

"I have no idea, haven't seen it before." Miyu answered. A surprised yelp from Aiko caught their attention as they saw her running to them. She sat down near Miyu and started untying her while mumbling 'sorry' over and over again.

Rei positioned himself into a half crouch with his legs spread to shoulder width with his left hand helf in front of himself in a half fist with the index and middle fingers were slightly more open, forming a half circle. His right arm was poised back, looking ready to strike like a snake, only instead of a fist he an open palm.

None of the genins saw this battle stance before and were looking at it with sincere confusion, though Hayato looked more surprised then confused.

'_Interesting… haven't seen this style in a long while._' He mused.

"Are you going to attack or just sit in your funny looking pose all day?" He taunted. He was more interested in seeing his style in action. He smirked when he saw his taunt work and Rei frowned and his body tensed.

"All right… ill make you regret calling my fighting style funny… but then again, you haven't seen it yet." Rei said with a smirk of his own.

A complete silence followed, as if the forest and its denizens were interested in this battle, with only the wind to keep blowing without a hindrance. All the other genins, with the exception of Hikari and Joshi who were still unconscious, were looking at the pair, holding their breath as if everything might explode. Though to their surprise, it did.

Faster then a striking snake, Rei sprang into action, clearing the five meters between them in a second, sending a flying spin kick aimed at Hayato's head. The Jounin didn't even blink and easily blocked the attack.

All the genins were staring dumbfounded at Rei, who recovered in an instance and lined another attack, a low sweep with his leg. Hayato simply lifted his own leg, avoiding the attack which swept beneath it. Rei pushed himself up with his arms, sending another kick at the face of his sensei. The kick was stopped short by a grabbing hand and a moment later Rei found himself flying through the air to land hard on his back and enter a roll.

Without losing his momentum he came out of the roll and bee lined to his opponent. This time he used his arms. Hayato easily avoided all of them, all the while examining the way he fought. He noted that his left hand was punching and he smirked.

'_Heh, I guess that he didn't learn how to use __it… that's good.'_ He mused, releasing an inner sigh of relief.

Rei then clenched his right hand into a fist and punched. Hayato blocked it but then to his surprise he saw flame-like chakra burst out of his fist right before the impact. This punch was much more powerful then he expected and he was launched back a little from the force. He jumped back with the momentum of the punch and landed a safe distance away, giving him a few spare moments to check the damage. There was a somewhat large bruise, and that area has gone numb for him. He moved his fingers a little to see if there was any change and when he was assured that there was none, he turned to the smiling Rei.

'_That was quite a large amount of chakra he had there, for a genin. I should be careful of that attack and avoid blocking it.'_He mused and couldn't help but smile as well. He already had suspicions about this kid. Rei charged again and Hayato was ready for him.

Miyu watched in shock and awe at the combatants, more precisely at Rei since Hayato didn't do anything but avoid getting hit with the exception of that weird chakra punch. His movements were fluid and every attack was aimed almost perfectly, almost, since Hayato always moved at the last moment. Rei's movements seemed like a dance, where every twist, spin, and motion was an attack. She watched as he threw a punch then entered a spinning jump to deliver a kick to Hayato's side, only for it to be blocked again. He used the defending arm as a foothold to send himself spinning in the opposite direction to deliver a kick on Hayato's other side, but only to be blocked again. He didn't stop though, He pushed himself back from Hayato, landing a back flip and then jumping to deliver a kick aimed at the jounin's neck, which was a small feat, considering Hayato was higher then Rei by at least a foot.

"HEY, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" She heard Kaito shout near her and she winced at the volume. It looked like it was only now that Kaito recovered from the initial state of awe that he was in.

Aiko seemed to notice that she stopped untying Miyu and yelped in surprise. After a moment Miyu was free from her binds and she turned to release Kaito. After another moment Kaito was rubbing his aching now free shoulder as he kept on watching the battle.

"Why didn't he tell us that he could do this thing?" Kaito Asked aloud, more himself that the girls. Miyu thought about it. Why really?

Right now Hayato avoided another chakra punch and she saw the chakra being released into the air, creating a small foot long shockwave.

Rei retreated back from Hayato and watched him, hoping to find an opening.

'_Damn… I can't hit him at all! I'm not even close!'_ He thought while his eyes scanned his opponent. Soon he realized that Hayato was just playing with him, since he saw that he wasn't even breaking a sweat. All the movement and attacks started to take its toll on Rei. But he was far from finished and he still had one last move. He started his attack again but to his surprise Hayato raised his hand to stop him.

"Hmm… can you remove your shirt?" He asked, earning a flat look from everyone who could hear him and an awkward minute of silence.

'_Why do they even have such thoughts in their heads?'_ Hayato asked himself in his thoughts.

"W-what? Is he some kind of a pervert!?" Miyu nearly shouted.

"No, no, no! I'm not!" Hayato said back while frantically shaking his head and holding his hands in front of him as if to defend himself from the claim. He turned his head and saw to his horror the horrified and hurt expression that was on Rei's face. It was as if he discovered some dark secret about his hero or something.

'_And I __started to think that he's kind of cool…'_ Rei thought sadly.

Watching as his new student's respect for him was draining faster then water in a sink was quite shocking for him.

"I'm NOT a pervert! I have a very legit reason for asking this!" He almost shouted in annoyance. Hayato noticed Rei stiffening and then confused and worried look he shot his way.

Rei looked at him, wondering what the hell he meant, while somewhere in the back of his head he was screaming 'he knows!' to himself.

"What do you mean?" He asked quietly, so only Hayato could hear.

"I want to see if you have something on you… on your back to be more precise." He said loud enough for everyone to hear, to Rei's dismay. "Don't worry. They are your teammates, they should know…" He added, quietly this time. He watched Rei's hesitation and could only guess what was going on in his head. After a moment of silence, he noticed him visibly relax and then take hold of his shirt and pulling it off. He was rather slim. The surprised gasps on the genins behind Rei told Hayato that he was right.

Miyu and Aiko watched in bafflement at the small fist sized tattoo like black mark in the middle of Rei's back. It looked like some twisted and curving shuriken with its five tips connecting to a line that was encircling it. Kaito mumbled something along the lines of 'what the hell'.

"Activate it." Hayato instructed. "You won't succeed if you won't. Do you want to let your team down?" He added when he saw the hesitation return. Rei then pulled a complete turn in his appearance and a determined look came onto his face.

Another set of surprised gasps told Hayato that Rei did as he told him. Kaito saw the ring encircling the mark as being sucked into the star-like mark and then disappear. A moment later, the mark, as if it was alive, started crawling on the skin, expanding further until it stopped, three tips ending at the back of his neck and shoulders and the other two going down, presumably to his legs.

He stood there for a moment, and then moved. Hayato's eyes widened when he saw that his speed was now two times faster then before. He frantically blocked hit after hit, not having any time to even counter. He was caught by surprise; he had to admit to himself, he didn't expect that sudden burst of speed even though he knew that it was going to happen.

Rei jumped again into a spin and delivered four kicks to the hand that Hayato raised in defence. He then landed and became a blur again and disappeared.

'_Shit!'_ Hayato screamed in his head. He didn't have time to react. Purely on instinct he jumped up and just in time. He saw Rei smash a chakra engulfed fist into the ground where he stood only a moment ago, the impact creating a small crater. He landed but had no time to do anything as Rei was upon him again.

The genins were all staring at the battle with their mouths agape. If it wasn't for the jaw, their mouths would've been on the floor right now.

'_What an amazing speed! How is this possible!? He never did ANYTHING like this in the academy!'_Kaito said in awe to himself. Rei continued his relentless assault for several minutes without showing any sings of slowing down.

Rei was a blur moving all around Hayato, who he thought was having a hard time now. Hayato blocked every attack and soon began noticing a few things. The first one that the punches and kicks held less strength now and Rei's chakra signature was getting weaker as they fought.

'_So the seal __is fueled by the chakra. While activated it will enhance the speed of the user but will eat on his chakra while he for him it probably feels like a normal run…' _Hayato concluded.

Rei suddenly broke out of the battle and jumped away and started forming hand seals, surprisingly slowly and with a look of concentration on his face.

"Suiton: Humatsu Rappa!" He said and suddenly a huge steam of bubbles came out of his mouth.

The bubbles engulfed Hayato and a moment later he jumped out. It didn't do him any harm, but it would've distracted him enough for Rei to get a hit. The bubbles all faded away in a moment and he saw that Rei was still standing in the same spot. He was now visibly panting and his battle stance was a little off.

'_Finally… maybe now he would slow down a little. Though __I'm curious of where did he learn a C rank jutsu from…' _The jounin mused.

The genin charged once again, albeit slower this time. Hayato was ready for him. He was tired of this and he was prepared for a final counter-attack that will knock this kid down.

Rei ran and picked up speed at the last moment and jumped, trying to deliver a punch to Hayato's face. The jounin simply sidestepped the punch and delivered a quick chop to the back of Rei's head.

To his surprise, instead of dropping down to the ground, Rei seemed to lose form and drop down in as water.

"Mizu Bunshin!?" He said in surprise, thinking to himself where does a genin learn mizu bunshin, especially one who was supposed to be an orphan, like Rei. His thoughts were cut off as a kick that was flying at the speed of a cannonball connected with his head.

"Yeah!" Rei shouted in victory, finally managing to deliver an attack. His happy expression was cut off when the body of Hayato suddenly disappeared in a 'poof' and a cloud of smoke. Rei was frozen, while still standing in his victory pose.

'_This wasn't a bunshin… a kage bunshin then?'_ He wondered.

"Nice one, but its not enough." Hayato's voice said from somewhere. Rei turned and saw something that made him see red.

Hayato was casually leaning against a tree, with a fresh cigarette in his mouth.

"I didn't expect that you would know mizu bunshin, and a C rank suiton jutsu. When your bubbles engulfed me, I simply created a kage bunshin and ordered it to slip out and draw your attention while I silently slipped away. If I hadn't done that, you might've actually hit me!" He said with a wide and toothy grin on his face.

Rei was exhausted. He doubted that he would beat him now, though he had to admit that he didn't actually expect any less from a jounin. He was panting heavily with he hands resting on his knees. The seal started to take its toll on him. Maybe he should just stop trying now…

'No… I won't give up! I'll land a hit on him!' He screamed at himself for even thinking about giving up.

He straightened himself, not giving a damn about his fighting stance now, and charged again. Hayato braced himself but before the blur that was Rei could get to him something he didn't expect happened.

At one moment, Rei was a blur that was shooting at the jounin but then, he suddenly slowed down, drastically. The genin cursed under his breath as he suddenly lost balance and he frantically tried to put his legs under himself to at least try to stop himself but it was futile. The legs were left behind and he dropped face first into the grassy ground.

Another awkward moment of silence passed with only the wind proving that the world didn't stop moving. Hayato felt a sweat drop forming.

"Uhm… did he just fell flat on his face?" Kaito asked while pointing a finger at Rei.

"I-I think so…" Miyu answered in confusion.

"Is he okay?" Aiko asked quietly. Miyu shrugged and started walking to Hayato, seeing that the battle was now over.

Rei was still lying face down in the grass, trying to hide his red face from the world. It was needless to say that it was the first time he was so embarrassed in a long time.

'Please don't laugh, please don't laugh…' The mantra repeated in his mind as he refused to look up, hoping that they would think he dropped dead.

"Are you okay?" He heard Hayato's voice above him, and gladly it didn't have any amusement in his tone. He raised his head and looked at his sensei's face, offering a somewhat apologetic look. He noted the worried look the jounin offered him and was somewhat surprised.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." He mumbled and tried to get up. He felt that his arms were weighting around a ton and they were visibly trembling. He couldn't find the strength to get up but he managed to raise himself to his knees.

Hayato silently watched as the genin struggled to get up. He saw the seal on his back, now returned to its original size. And also noticed something new on the seal: where the 'ring' was, now had an additional ring, having chain like features.

'_So he was almost drained of chakra, and the seal deactivated itself. His muscles are probably having a hell of a time…'_ He thought and looked at Rei's trembling limbs. It seemed that he gave up on trying standing up and just staying on his knees was enough for him. The sound of footsteps could be heard and Hayato already knew it were the other genins.

"Hayato-sensei, is he fine?" Miyu asked.

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Hayato answered with a raised eyebrow. "He's right here you know…"

"I'm fine…" Rei mumbled, ignoring the uneasy glance Miyu shot him.

He then heard an annoyed sigh and a hand grabbing him around the waist and he found himself heaved over Hayato's shoulder.

He carried him to a fallen log and placed him down to a sitting position, leaning against it. Hayato then left off to somewhere, leaving Rei with the other genins.

"Ahh, can I ask you what happen-" Miyu tried to ask but was interrupted by Kaito who practically shouted 'Awesome!' near her.

"How did you do that? That was so awesome!" Kaito asked excitedly, with Miyu frowning at his antics. Rei only offered a grin as an answer. Before he could say anything something grey hit him in the face, which was his shirt. Hayato calmly stood in front of them and motioned to the others to sit as well. When everyone, including Aiko were sitting on the log he cleared his throat.

"Well Rei, I must say that… you failed the test 10 minutes ago." He said with a grin causing an outburst from Kaito. "Now, before you start shouting here for my demise, I need to ask something of you." He added with a glance at Rei, silencing Kaito before he could say anything.

"Can you please channel some chakra through your body? That is, if you have any left." He said with his seriousness visible. Rei did as told and he heard a gasp from Aiko.

"Wow…" Kaito mumbled awkwardly, watching Rei's 'decorated' body.

More seals were visible on his body. Hayato counted six in total, including the speed seal on Rei's back. He wasn't well versed in seals but he could recognize the work of a seal-master when he saw one, and what was in front of him was a walking masterpiece.

He recognized only two of them: The speed seal, which he already saw in action and the barrier seal. He saw the spiraling and twisting small seal on Rei's belly, having a chain-like pattern. He didn't quite know how the barrier seal worked, but as far as he knew, it was designed primarily for seal users like Rei, as he just understood. When the users used more then 3 quarters of his chakra, the barrier seal would activate, disabling all the active seals to conserve chakra. He noticed that most of the genin's seals were surrounded by a chain patterned ring, as if they were locked by a chain.

On Rei's palms he saw a seal which had a tomoe surrounded by three fang shaped pointers. He didn't know its purpose, but he had assumptions.

'_Maybe this is how he was able to unleash that large amount of chakra through his fist. Without incredible chakra control, it would be very difficult for a genin to do so.'_Hayato pondered, wondering if he was correct with his assumptions.

The most peculiar seal was on the back of his head. It was a zigzagging line, starting from between his shoulder blades and ending on the back of his head, being partially hidden by his brown hair. This seal was a mystery as well.

All these seals originated from their village, Kawa. But the odd part, that these seals weren't seen in the last decade... for them to pop up like that on a genin was baffling for Hayato.

"What are those?" Kaito asked, pointing at the tattoo like marks on Rei's skin.

"Which seals do you know how to use?" Hayato calmly asked, ignoring Kaito's question. Rei silently showed his palms and pointed on his own back.

"Okay… well, I guess I should explain to the others about them." He said while sighing. "The seal on Rei's back is a speed seal. It basically makes him faster at the cost of chakra. The ones on his palm… my guess is that these are allowing you to unleash that chakra like you did earlier, correct?" He smirked when Rei nodded. He loved it when he was right.

"How did you acquire them?" He asked and saw the way the young genin paled at the question. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to ask him now…

"I… I always had them, ever since I was a child." Rei answered, though it wasn't the whole truth, it wasn't a lie either. He had the speed seal on his back ever since he could remember himself.

"Hmm… as you say." Hayato said, obviously not buying it.

'_What kind of a seal-master would waste his talents on a kid?'_ He asked himself while fumbling with his pocket, eventually pulling out a lighter.

"Alright, now let's summarize your 'mission' now." He said and ignited a cigarette.

"You failed miserably." He said with a wide, amused smile, looking at his agape students. "Let's start with you." He said and pointed at Rei.

"You're fast, and think somewhat tactically. Though I still don't understand why you didn't share your plan on taking out the other teams with your teammates…"

"He did WHAT!?" Miyu interrupted.

"…Though you did succeed to a certain level with basic traps and deceit and even managed to catch up to your team just in time." He said without taking notice of Miyu. "And now comes my favorite part! Now im getting to tell you all the mistakes you did before and during our battle." He said with a wide smile.

"First, when you dispatched the other team, you didn't untie your teammates. Same goes for when we started fighting. It would've been easier for you if you would've released your teammates and attacked me all at once, yet you decided to ignore this and take me on your own.

In a real life and death situation, such actions will not end well, if you and your teammates won't die, you will be wounded by the very least and lose the battle." He said with a monotone, judging voice,

"Your biggest mistake was not listening. You didn't see underneath the underneath. When I explained to you my handicap, I told you that I won't make a move against you, and only defend myself. You might've succeeded if you would've just gone on to the flag while not avoiding a fight with me. You place the mission on a lower priority. You will see in the future that sometimes you will have to fight in order to complete an objective but alas, this time wasn't one of those. Because you chose to fight instead of completing the mission, you failed yourself and your teammates." He said in the same tone. Rei lowered his head, avoiding looking at his teammates.

"Now… about our fight: You're very fast, which is your primary way of attacking. You just plan on overwhelming them with your speed and high rate of attack but against more skilled opponents, such as me, it won't work so easily. Your taijutsu skills are… weak."

"What!?" Rei said in shock, surprising everyone with the outburst.

"I wasn't attacking at all, rarely even countering any of your attacks. If it was a real battle, it would've ended in just a minute. You leave to many openings for an enemy to strike at you, though you counter it with your speed it won't be enough against a more powerful foe. While your speed is your ally, it's also your enemy. I noticed during our fight that while you move fast with the help of the seal, your attacks became less aimed and held less power as a price for the higher ratio. My guess that your body is moving too fast for your mind to react in time since as I noticed when you were forming hand seals, you reduced your speed considerably, because if you didn't, you might've made a mistake and wasted time." Hayato said while scratching his chin.

Rai was partially stunned. He didn't expect for someone who fought him for a little longer then ten minutes to be able to read him like an open book, and discern his weaknesses like this. What annoyed him the most was that Hayato was completely right. He indeed had time controlling his body correctly while using the speed seal, but he worked on it and it won't be long until he would be able to use the seal to perfection.

"I've seen the Douyou… your battle stance before, and I have seen it in use, and I can say that you only know the basics. You rely on your speed too much, even though it is complimenting your Douyou, it also weakens you. I would suggest you to avoid using your speed seal because it literally eats on you chakra and like now, coupled with a pair of jutsu's or more, you will end up without chakra and too exhausted to do anything. Unless you find a way to improve yourself, every mission scenario I can think of, is ending with your failure, or death." He finished with a harsh voice.

Miyu and Kaito were partially stunned. Their teammate just got verbally destroyed in a single moment. Rei still sat on the ground, leaning against the log with his head pointed downwards, allowing the jounin's words to sink in. He has just been told that everything he knew, everything he worked on, wasn't enough at all and not only that, the entire team failed because of him.

'Maybe I shouldn't have been so harsh with him… he's still much higher in skill then the average genin.' Hayato thought and turned to look at the other team 4 members.

"About you two… I have nothing to say. I didn't see anything special and you were taken out by a _simple genjutsu_…" He said and a moment of silence ensued. "And that's it." He added to make it clear that it was all he was going to say. Miyu and Kaito looked at him with their mouths agape. He gave Rei such a long review while he gave them a single sentence, which didn't even say anything good about them, maybe even an insult. Hayato turned to Aiko, who yelped in surprise.

"And you… I think you should ask your sensei to teach you some taijutsu moves. I'm serious, it was pathetic! He didn't even hit you and you already gave up. Get a backbone." He said with a smile. "So… team four! You officially fail. And you suck at your current state."

The genins, even including Aiko stared daggers at Hayato, each one of them thinking of various painful ways they could punish the blond jounin.

"But…" He added when he saw the glares. "You should consider yourself lucky for me being in a good mood today. I'll give you a second chance, since I saw only one of your team members in action. So meet me here at ten in the morning." He said with a smile, extinguishing the glares and making them look at him with confusion. Hayato was about to say something when a feminine shout pierced his ears.

"YOU ARE DEAD!" Rei heard a somewhat familiar voice and he visibly paled. He struggled to get up as fast as he could but he was too late. A foot crashed into the back of his head, sending him flying to the ground. He then felt surprisingly powerful hands grab his neck, lift him to his feet and them start shaking him with rage. With his dazed vision he managed to see that it was Karin.

Kazu ran into the fray to rescue Rey while Jin walked up to Hayato.

"So… any winners?" he asked, ignoring Kazu's attempts to calm down an enraged Karin.

"Nope, looks like everyone failed. So I guess Rei slowed you down in the forest, correct?" Hayato asked in an amused tone.

"Yeah… I guess I should save him now…" he said with a scowl and left him to help Kazu, leaving a very dumbfounded Kaito, Miyu and Aiko.

After ten minutes of attempting to calm down Karin, who refused to let go of the semi-conscious Rei, she finally allowed him to go without severe injury. They left team four to join their own sensei, a black-haired woman who they saw for their first time.

"Alright, not that this matter has been settled, I guess you're all free to go now, I'm going to catch some sleep… you guys tired me. Meet me here at ten in the morning tomorrow." He said with a huge yawn and shunshined away, leaving them o their own business. Apparently there was a safe road from the centre of the training ground which wasn't filled with traps and they could easily leave and get back to centre while using it.

The way back home was very silent, with only Kaito trying to start a conversation, only to fail every time. He could understand that perhaps Rei was too tired to talk, since he _did_ look exhausted but Miyu… she was talkative most of the time so silence was very uncharacteristic for her. She seemed deep in thought at the moment.

When they finally reached the village Kaito rubbed his belly and decided to try again.

"So… Miyu, are you hungry?" All the three stopped as they considered.

"Yeah, why not, all these traps gave me the appetite." Miyu said with a smile.

"Perfect! Lets go, it's on me!" Kaito announced loudly and started walking again. Rei felt somewhat uneasy. Miyu and Kaito were going to eat now so that only left him either training or going home to get some sleep, and considering how he felt now, it left him only with sleep.

Kaito noticed that Rei was lagging behind, thinking over something.

"Hoi, Rei! Aren't you coming?" He asked him and was confused by the surprised look Rei shot him.

"You're… inviting me too?" Rei asked while avoiding making eye contact.

"Of course I do! We are teammates after all! C'mon, it will be fun!" He almost shouted and lead the way again, with Rei catching up. Rei still thought about this. He never was invited by someone to eat, or anything else in that matter. He didn't really have friends for it to begin with. But even when he thought about other reasons Kaito might have for inviting him, he couldn't suppress a smile that sneaked out.

'_Maybe this won__'t be so bad after all…'_ He mused and finally caught up to them.

* * *

There was a knock on the door and after a moment Kento opened it. There stood a smoking Hayato.

"Good afternoon Hayato, what are you doing here?" He asked him and invited him in. Hayato entered the classroom.

"I'm sorry, but I don't really have much time, I got a lot of work here…" Kento said with a frown, indicating a large pile of papers on his desk.

"Don't worry; it won't take long, just a single question. I hope that I'm not bothering you." Hayato added with a worried look. It sure was a large amount of paperwork.

"No, no, it's always good to see you. What did you want to ask me? Is anything wrong with the genin team you got?" He said with sly smile. It wasn't often that jounins weren't pleased with the genin team they were assigned to. "Do you wish to be moved to another team or something?"

Hayato severely scowled. "No, it's not the problem. I wanted to ask you how come one of my genins just happens to be a Douyou user."

Kento's jaw dropped down and it was Hayato's turn to grin.

* * *

**Alright, this was the third chapter! If you have any questions i will be glad to anwer them, just leave them in a review. There will be some answers in the next chapter, so if you can wait, just do so. I hope that you liked it and enjoyed reading it. Please review!**


	4. Having lunch

**AN: Okay, This chapter came out way longer then i expected, though it still didnt beat my length record. Anyway, in this chapter i offer you some insight on Kawagakure and the likes.  
I hope that you will like this chapter, i'm not entirely sure how it came out in the end myself.**

**The greatest thing that i decided is that this fic wont be so AU. I decided that ill use some of the characters, perhaps even all of them! i still havent decided in which timeline this story is happening though ive been leaning on several years after the manga (even though i dont know the end myself, but hell, this is FF) but i might change my mind, though thats unlikely. If you want, you can tell me what you think about it. Right now im trying to find a way how to integrate the characters of konoha into this story, though i think ive already found a way, and an easy one at that. another problem is i have, is the timeline, im not sure on how many years later would my timeline would be... as in, how old are everyone? is naruto the hokage? you know, these things. i would've liked to recieve some suggestions to help me decide so be my guest and help me out :D one of my greatest problems yet is that i need to do some catching up... i still need to read around a 100 chapters of the manga! :O but ill manage :)  
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**Also, i just recalled when i was writing it that the number 4 is NOT a good number in the japanese culture, so i changed the team number to 5. since this website is awfuly laggy for me in the past 2 days, i will update the earlier chapter when ill find a way to fix this mess, it took me a little over 30 minutes to upload this, so meanwhile, enjoy this chapter!**

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Kawagakure was a rather small village, though considered as a prospering one when considering its size. Nagare no kuni was not a rich country, most of the income was from exporting water, which hey had plenty of and considering that one of their neighbors was Suna, they had a willing and grateful client, as long as their prices were cheap. The second source of income was various metals such as gold, silver or even simple steel. The location of the Land of Streams was both a curse and a blessing. They were located to the west of Suna and Iwa, too far away from the other ninja villages, and potential economic clients. And the fact that both their neighbors were two of the five great villages of the elemental countries, Kawa was litteraly left in their shadows. Fortunately for the 'lesser' village, Not everyone were capable paying hiring the more experienced and more importantly, expensive, Suna or Iwa nin, so Kawa lowered their prices accordingly, earning themselves a steady stream of missions. Another advantage that Kawa had was that they were the most western shinobi village in the area and had a decent amount of neighboring countries that were more then willing to hire them

Even though Kawagakure wasn't one of the great villages, the small village survived and prospered for a little over three quarters of a century now, mostly by staying neutral in any conflicts that didn't have anything to do with them, such as the great shinobi wars. Even with the neutral policy, Kawa still had a share of its conflicts, most of them with Iwa.

It was a running joke in Kawa that most of the ruling figures in Iwa had the mental capacity of a rock. Iwa seemed obsessed with getting into arguments with Kawa over petty matters, such as the direction a river flowed to. Several of the major rivers of Nagare began in Tsuchi and Iwa had demanded a fee for the water. Needless to say that Kawa struggled not to laugh in their faces at their ridiculous demands. Fourteen years ago, Iwa noticed that Kawa's influence had grown and finally made its move against them. Iwa never considered Kawa as a threat, and so never treated them with seriousness and didn't deploy a strong force against them. There were few major battles and the so called war lasted two years, with Kawa prevailing and ending by withdrawing from the conflict. As a result, Kawa was forbidden from accepting any sort of missions in Tsuchi, losing a large number of future clients as a result, but most likely saving the lives of many Kawa shinobi. Iwa was simply too powerful for Kawa to win the conflict, not without enormous loses on their side.

As far as relationships with Suna went, they were almost allies. Suna supported them in the Iwa conflict, though not openly, not willing to get into the conflict. It was all due to their help that they managed to end the conflict as it did, as Iwa was more then willing to wipe out Kawa.

Right now, the Kawa-Suna relationship was at a friendly status but not enough to become allies. Kawa knew that Suna didn't have anything to gain from an alliance with them, but it never hurt to be on their good side before.

Suna and Iwa weren't the only hidden villages around the area. Another pair of small villages had been established in the past fifty years and it all meant more competition for Kawa.

Kawagakure itself was not a large village, only three miles in length and five in width, and with small mountains surrounding the village, providing it with natural walls. Through the village passed a wide river, pouring into the village from a large cave, in effect halving the city by the lively stream. The city was circle shaped, with another pair of small walls, outlining the borders of the village itself, beyond that were a little over a dozen square miles of forest and training grounds for the shinobi and then, the mountains that surrounded the city which was the natural border of the village, or as the villagers called it, "the mountain ring".

There were twenty thousand civilians in Kawa with almost two thousand shinobi of all ranks and ages.

In the center of the village was a large courtyard, right next to the river. This courtyard was the trade center of the village, with many shops and restaurants, and in one such restaurant sat the members of team four.

It took them quite some time to decide what to eat. Kaito insisted on eating steaks, with Miyu saying that it will completely ruin her healthy eating habits and Rei stating that he wasn't that hungry for a steak. After at least fifteen minutes of arguing Miyu and Rei eventually gave up and now they sat in one such restaurant.

Rei looked down at his now empty plate and realized that he was wrong about saying that he wasn't hungry. He was the first one to finish his meal and to his surprise he realized that he wouldn't mind another one. It was probably the speed seal, he explained to himself; every time he was using it it took a large toll on his stamina and muscles and always left him rather hungry after activating it. So now he just sat quietly, listening to his teammate's conversation as they ate.

Miyu just ordered herself some salad while Kaito almost finished his own piece of steak.

"I still can't believe we sort of failed today. It's such a bad start and we are an unusual team as it is, since usually to balance the teams the place a good ninja, an average one, and a one who isn't that good. As it turned out, our decent ninja wasn't so bad." She was looking at Rei while she said that, causing Kaito to burst out in protests. Miyu simply waved him away as if he didn't matter.

"Speaking of starts… what do you think about Hayato-sensei?" Miyu asked.

"He looks annoying." Was all Kaito answered and Rei laughed.

"He IS annoying. Every attack I threw either got avoided or blocked. And that stupid smile of his is only makes me more annoyed while fighting him." The brown haired boy said while smiling fondly.

"Hmm… looks like you like him." Miyu said as she observed his smile.

"I'm not sure but he looks like he's powerful. I hope he would teach us some awesome stuff." Rei said with a shrug.

"Yeah, preferably some powerful jutsu." Kaito said cheerfully.

"By the way, I wanted to ask you before…" Miyu blurted. "Where did you learn that bubble jutsu of yours? It's a chuunin jutsu and they don't teach this in the academy."

"Hai, it is. But my elemental affinity is water, so suiton jutsu cost me much less chakra then others. All my chakra training helped me a lot as well, I have a rather large amount of chakra for a genin so even if my affinity wasn't water, I still could've used that jutsu without much cost… but when I use it with the seals it becomes more complicated." Rei answered.

"What do you mean?" Kaito asked.

"Just imagine that something is constantly eating away your chakra even if you are doing absolutely nothing. In order for the seal to be activated, and make me faster it must always use chakra to keep itself activated. So if I add a variety of chakra consuming techniques into the mix, my chakra will run out much faster, but you already saw that yourself." He finished some sadly. "That's why I only work on my regular speed now, without the seals. I'm trying to avoid using the seal because it can also be bad in a battle."

"So in a way, it leaves you only with taijutsu." Miyu more stated then asked and Rei nodded with a frown.

"Your taijutsu…" Kaito mumbled, looking as if he was deep in thought.

"The Douyou." Rei finished for him.

"Yeah, that Douyou. What is that thing? It looks cool." Kaito said with a wide grin and Rei couldn't help but grin as well.

"Well…" Rei mumbled and looked embarrassed for some reason. "I just… didn't really master it so I can't really call what I'm using Douyou. You can say that I just know the movements, but I don't know the…" He paused, searching for the correct word. "…why's and how's of the Douyou." He finished, hoping that it made any sense. To his surprise Kaito nodded.

"I know what you mean. My family has our own fighting style as well, I know all the moves and everything but my mom always says that I will never be able to use it correctly unless I will actually learn it, instead of just knowing how to throw a punch in a different way." The dark haired boy said while nodding.

Rei highly doubted it was the same so he decided to enlighten his teammate.

"I don't think it's the same. It is said that a master of Douyou can kill an enemy with a single hit. Shatter walls and break bones without any problem at all." He said with all seriousness, noticing the looks of awe on his teammate's face. "But my problem is that I'm very, very far from a master rank. I can barely make a crack on a stone wall with my strongest hit, and I'm hurting my own my hand every time I do that…"

Kaito and Miyu silently looked at the brown haired boy, not sure whether to believe that their new friend might posses such power or to think he's just making empty boasts to impress them.

"I need good chakra control for that, and my chakra control, as far as I know, is not even average. But I have these." Rei raised his palms and channeled some chakra into them, making the seals visible. "These seals allow me to gather chakra into them and release it at once. Its just a replacement until I get better chakra control but when ill get it, these seals will become even more useful!" He grinned and decided to give them a little demonstration.

He held up his palm in front of him so they could easily see. Kaito leaned to take a closer look while the blond girl decided to stay where she was. Several seconds later they noticed that the air in his palm seemed to shimmer a little and Rei told them to watch. At that moment a little, barely visible, wave of chakra came out of Rei's palm.

"It's a shockwave?" Miyu asked and the seal-covered genin nodded.

"It just adds a little more impact to my palm strikes and deals a little internal damage." He said and scratched his head while grinning sheepishly. Miyu started to get impressed. Having Rei on their team might make them the best in the future, since she knew a lot of people and she hasn't even heard of such abilities. It might just be their team's trump card! Rei on the other hand was rather nervous. He knowing the Douyou was supposed to be a secret, and he couldn't just pass on the secrets of the art he now possessed to everyone he knew, but he felt terrible that he had to lie to them, then again, he wasn't really lying, he just left major parts out. Additionally, he made a vow to keep the secrets safe, he wasn't going to tell them to someone he only knew on a friendly level, and for half a day to say the least.

"Still… you haven't answered where you got those jutsus." Miyu asked, still wanting to know more about the brown haired boy, to the boy's dismay. _'Why are they so interested in me? They had four years to get to know me and only now they decided to start!'_ he almost screamed in his head. Kaito and Miyu never tried to befriend him in all the four years of the academy, he tried to befriend them but nothing came out of it. In fact, he didn't even remember a single friendly conversation with them in all those four years! And now all of a sudden they were so interested in him.

"A jutsu scroll." Rei said bluntly. It wasn't exactly a lie, since he really did learn the jutsu from a scroll after all, but it was more an attempt to delay them until he could find a better excuse. Miyu visibly frowned and Kaito grinned.

"So where did you get that scroll from?" the boy said. Rei's mind was racing; he realized that they won't give up until he would either give them a legit excuse or the truth.

"I got it from Oji-san." He said, deciding to dump this mess on one of the few nice people who he knew.

"You have an uncle? I though that you were…" Miyu asked but then stopped when she realized what she was about to say.

"…An orphan." Rei finished for her. "I still am, and Tsuba-san isn't really my uncle… he was always nice to me and he didn't object if I called him Oji-san, so that kind of stuck. Anyway, I asked some help for my ninjutsu so he gave me a scroll with several exercises and these two jutsu you saw."

The moment he finished talking he realized that he might've made a little mistake. When their minds registered what he said their jaws dropped down. There was only one 'Tsuba' in this village, and this was Tsubasa Noboru, who was acting as Kawa's Kage. Even though he wasn't one of the five great kages, he openly said to everyone that he was going to raise Kawa to greatness and make the five great ninja villages to acknowledge them. The fact that he was doing something to actually achieve that made many people to admire him. In the last decade, since the losses in the Kawa-Iwa conflict, the village of Kawa had doubled the number of shinobi they had before the conflict, enlarged its influence in the area and they were literally prospering now. All of that was thanks to the man named Tsubasa.

"That's complete bullcrap!" Miyu said and frowned.

"I'm sure you just don't want to share your jutsu scrolls with us, but you didn't need to make up something like that." Kaito laughed.

Surprisingly, that stung Rei. He frowned as well and stood up, startling the other two by the sudden movement.

"You don't believe me? Then lets me prove it to you!" he then walked away. Miyu and Kaito looked at each other, shrugged and got up to catch up to him, with Kaito hastily leaving money on their table.

Rei marched down the streets. He knew that Tsubasa was somewhere near the courtyard. He always was there at this time. When he finally reached the courtyard he stopped, his teammates finally coming to a halt behind him.

The courtyard was a large place in a circular shape and exactly in the middle stood a huge thirty feet tall stone statue of three people. The left one was a tall man with shoulder length hair. He wore a robe which was decorated with many kunai and shuriken. The middle one was a woman, with waist long hair, wearing a standard shinobi uniform with a long katana was strapped to her back. The right one was another tall man, with short and spiky hair. He wore a regular uniform but the oddest part was the bandolier he wore, filled with kunai.

These three were the three great companions, as they were called by the villagers of Kawa. The three of them lived through many years of travel until they decided to settle somewhere and the daimyo of the land of Stream allowed them to settle in his country. Soon enough, more wandering shinobi decided to stay in that small settlement that the three companions built and after several years, the village hidden in the river was born. That was the short version which was taught to every academy student. Rei already guessed that what they told the students was the fairytale version of the true story, since they were shinobi, and a shinobi's life never was easy, like that story made it sound.

In any way, those three companions established their own clans, the Okarashi clan, which was the clan that Miyu belonged to, the Noboru clan, which had Tsubasa as the Nagarekage, and the last one, the Daitsuki clan, which unfortunately defected to the enemy during the Kawa-iwa conflict. For the treason the Daitsuki clan was completely wiped out but it was a blow below the belt for Kawa. The village lost many good people that night. The Daitsuki clan was one of the most formidable clans in the village, and they had a quite destructive power, and sadly, it was turned against their home village. There were many stories about that night, now called 'the night of the great betrayal', even going so far as telling that the Daitsuki clan head had summoned demons to fight for him, though there was no evidence of such thing.

"Where are we going?" Miyu finally asked, tired of following Rei to nowhere.

"He's here somewhere; he always hangs out here somewhere!" The brown haired boy said in annoyance.

"I think he has some more important duties then sitting here and drinking tea… or talking to you." Kaito said while grinning. Rei ignored them and closed his eyes.

The familiar burning sensation in the back of his eyes returned and he winced. Miyu noticed that and asked him if he was feeling alright but was ignored.

While he was in the training ground, activating his special vision, or however it was really called, would've been useful since there was a limited amount of people there and he wanted to locate each one of them. He had a range of two hundred meters while in this vision mode and while it was priceless in the forest, here, it was awful. After all, he was in a _ninja_ village!

There were chakra signatures EVERYWHERE! Since his vision didn't detect solid objects, probably because his eyes were closed, he could see the chakra no matter what, whether it was behind walls or any other obstruction. But here, they were everywhere. There were ninja everywhere and he easily saw them, but he was looking for a single person and in the middle of this sea, it was as easy as it was finding him with his regular vision.

Fortunately for him, Tsuba's chakra signature was more then familiar to him and considering that he was the most powerful shinobi in this village, his signature was quite visible. After about five minutes of standing there with his eyes closed he spotted him, a very bright blue flame, burning brightly and forming into a shape of a human.

Rei smiled wildly, deactivated his special vision and opened his eyes. A small wave of nausea passed through him but he shook it away. Miyu looked at him curiously, noting that he eyes were teary and pink. Kaito in the meanwhile was bored and occupied himself by looking at the various shops and stands that sold various foods and items.

"What happened to your eyes?" The Kunoichi asked in concern.

"Ah, nothing, lets go, I know where he is." Rei answered and walked off and Miyu shrugged. She didn't expect him to deliver an honest answer. Apparently, her teammate was still hiding a lot, and if he knew what was better for him, he better had a good reason for it.

* * *

Kento just stood there, dumbstruck, with his jaw hanging open. If not for the seriousness of this conversation Hayato might've broken out laughing. Though he still wished he had a camera on him.

"Douyou… no, you made a mistake, it's impossible." Kento said with his voice heavy with denial.

"No, it's true. Now let me see this…" Hayato said and fumbled with one of his pockets while Kento was muttering incoherent words to himself. Eventually Hayato took out a piece of paper and began to read it.

"As far as I see here, Rei was ranked seventeenth out of twenty five students in the skill ladder. Miyu is ranked fourth while Kaito is ranked third. I have to say that the team I got is not as balanced as I thought; since I can easily give the rookie of the year award to one of them or at least place him in second place." He finished and folded the paper back into his pocket

"Rei? Impossible, he has never shown any impressing skills and most of the time that he was here he was either not listening or sleeping through most of the classes. Yes he could throw a punch or two, but I wouldn't give him rookie of the year for that." Kento said, not willing retreat.

"I wouldn't exactly describe the Douyou as 'a punch or two'…" Hayato mumbled, silencing the chuunin. Hayato pulled his sleeve off his arm and showed the chuunin the blue bruise. "As far as I see and feel, he bruised the muscles and bones beneath the skin, while it still looks like a normal bruise. Its nothing serious though." Hayato explained.

"But HOW?!" Kento said loudly. "As far as I know there is only ONE person who knows it, and he's not in the village right now."

"Well, I know as much as well. I guess ill have to go to Tsubasa-sama to ask him of this. He knows about almost everything that's happening in the village after all. Another reason why I came here… I want a psychological evaluation on the kid. How he acts, what makes him tick, you know, the regular stuff." The blond jounin said.

"Well…" Kento began with a sigh. "He seems rather lazy and unmotivated. I haven't ever seen him doing the school training willingly, and he was a loner." He said and noticed Hayato's raised eyebrow. "He didn't have any friends as far as I saw it. He usually just sat alone, either sleeping or silently listening to whatever I and the other teachers talked about. There were few fights here and there but it didn't develop into anything serious, though those boys still hold a grudge against him. He does know how to pack a punch…" He said, sending a glance at Hayato's arm.

"So you want to say that he had no friends here whatsoever? And you haven't showed any interest in that?" Hayato asked, just with a minimum amount of venom in his voice. This wasn't supposed to be the way a ninja was supposed to be raised or in any case a young boy! Solitude led to mistrust and a lack of trust in your comrades could lead to death.

"I-it's the p-parents…" Kento mumbled, taken aback by the venom in the jounin's voice, who froze when he heard that. "T-they asked me to keep an eye on their children, and make sure they wouldn't get too friendly with the boy…" Kento stuttered, and Hayato was pleased that there was a fair amount of shame in his voice.

Hayato nodded, more to himself. Something wasn't right here.

"In any case, I think ill manage to make something good out of them. I'll take my leave." He said to him, rather coldly. A teacher was supposed to look after his peers, even the less favorite ones. And for some reason, he felt a sensation of pride at his new student. The kid hid his talent for almost 4 years without anyone even suspecting… no wonder his other teammates were so shocked.

'_I'm definitely going to talk to Tsubasa today.'_ The blond thought to himself before he disappeared in a small turbulence of leaves and wind, scattering the large stack of papers that were on Kento's desk all over the room.

Kento just sighed. Somehow he was one hundred percents sure that Hayato did that on purpose.

* * *

Rei led them to the park, which was near the courtyard. It was filled with trees, open grassy areas and benches along the walkways. There were well over fifty people in the park, be it young or old couples, children running around and playing, followed by their parents and even a few who tried to earn their fortune by moving around with their carts, selling various drinks and foods.

Kaito and Miyu saw that he was heading for a bench, which was occupied by an old man who saw there peacefully, watching the children play around. To their surprise, Rei stopped in front of the man, pointed his finger on him and looked back at them with a triumphant smile on his face. The old man's wrinkled face twisted in confusion. He was bald and he wore baggy grey clothes and he had the smell of a farmer to him, and the dirt that was on his pants.

"There he is." He announced.

The blank looks he received from his teammates told him that they weren't so sure of that. The old man was glaring as well.

"You know… Tsubasa-sama is not THAT old." Miyu said.

"Yeah, are you feeling okay?" Kaito asked. Rei just frowned and turned around to face the old man.

"Okay, drop the henge, now." He ordered the man. The blond girl thought tfor a moment that perhaps her teammate was insane.

"I don't know what you're talking about, please leave me alone." The old man said nervously, and they couldn't blame him.

"Please, your chakra signature is bright like a katon jutsu in a dark room." Rei said while crossing his arms. The old man sighed and with a puff of smoke disappeared. To Miyu and Kaito's shock a much younger man was sitting on the bench instead of the old man.

"Seriously, I'm trying to get away from paperwork for at least half an hour and now im getting chased by genin for whatever reasons you have. So… how is your jounin sensei?" he asked with a smile, ignoring the incredulous looks he received not only from half of the genin team in front of him but from the other villagers who noticed that transformation.

Tsubasa was a tall man in his early thirties. He had shoulder length bright brown hair and sapphire blue eyes which were gleaming as he looked at them. He wore a white robe, which was the only thing that showed him as the village's leader, with wavy blue lines crossing it on the lower side. Beneath the robe he wore the standard ninja attire, complete with a jounin's vest.

"Heh, we got stuck with some annoying guy named Hayato." Rei answered.

"Oh, Hayato! Well, you shouldn't be rough with him, he's a good fighter and hopefully he's a good teacher. You're his second team, with the first one already graduated…" He trailed off from there. "Oh, hello there." He said as if in an afterthought with a wave to the other two.

"Tsubasa-sama!" Both of them said with a low and respectful bow.

"Ah, c'mon don't do that, were not in the office." He said with a wave of his hand, as if trying to swat and annoying fly out of the air. "So why were you looking for me?" he asked Rei making a barely visible pleading look.

"Remember that scroll you gave me with those Suiton jutsu's? The one you gave me around a year ago?" Rei asked him. Tsubasa gave him questioning a look that said 'what have you gotten me into?'

"Yes, sure, why do you ask?" He answered and noted the surprised looks on his teammate's faces. _'Hehe, using me to impress your teammates, are you?'_ he mused, even though he already guessed the real reason Rei asked him to lie.

"No, nothing else, we'll be going now." The young boy said with the widest of smiles. "Ill see you later Oji-san!" He finished and walked away while smiling triumphantly. The other two genins bowed and followed him. Tsubasa stood up and decided to return to the tower, it won't be long before the rumors of him sitting in the park would reach his secretary and she would send the ANBU to recover him, after she would dispel the clone he left in the office of course.

Once team five walked far enough Kaito and Miyu commenced their interrogation. Rei found himself being bombarded with questions and he wasn't sure what to make of this.

"I already answered this; he was always nice to me so that's how I know him." He answered them and scratched the back of his head. "We have Hayato's second test tomorrow morning, what are you planning?" He asked them, trying to change the subject.

"I think ill be going home now, ill try to get a last moment's training session." Kaito said with determination dripping from his voice.

"Well, considering that we have no idea which test he will give, I doubt he will give us the same one again, I have nothing else to do but prepare myself for the worst case scenario." The blond girl said, frowning at the boy's, realizing that Rei changed the subject and that Kaito only helped him. "And I suggest you to do the same."

"Yeah, I guess we should get ready for tomorrow." Rei said, not sounding happy about it.

"Yosh, we will kick Hayato-sensei's ass tomorrow!" Kaito said with a fist raised high above his head. Miyu laughed at his antics and Rei couldn't help but laugh as well.

"Alright, ill see you there tomorrow. Thanks for the food!" The seal-covered boy said.

"Yeah, thanks Kaito." Miyu said with a smile. A little blush formed on Kaito's face and his lips formed a wide smile.

"By the way…" Rei suddenly said, turning his teammate's attention towards him. "If you can… can you please keep my seals a secret? I don't really want everyone to know about them, it's sort of my secret weapon."

"Oh, sure! If its your secret weapon I wont ruin nit for you. Your secret is safe with me." Kaito said with a grin and Miyu nodded her agreement.

They all said their farewells and walked to their own separate ways. The clans lived in the northern part of the village, in the clan district. Since both Kaito and Miyu were members of a clan they headed north, while Rei headed south.

* * *

When Miyu entered her home she was greeted by her father and mother, who were smiling at her. Her mother looked like an older version of herself, wearing a pink kimono that Miyu knew her mother really liked. Her father had short black hair, neatly trimmed beard and he wore white robes that resembled a kimono.

"Congratulations!" they both said in unison. "So how's your new team?" Her father, Sato, asked her.

"Thanks, the new team is fine." She answered happily as she was swept into a hug by her mother.

"And who are your teammates?" Hanako, asked.

"Takeshi Kaito and Katsuro Rei. Our jounin sensei is Hideki Hayato." Miyu answered but the moment the words left her mouth she noticed her mother's smile becoming weaker, and her father stopping smiling altogether. Her gaze moved from her mother to her father, asking fo some answers.

"I think I will go and ask Tsubasa-sama to transfer Miyu to a different team." Sato said to the older woman. Miyu paled visibly. Transfer her? Why? What was going on?

"Why?" She managed to ask them.

"I don't want my daughter to be on the same team as that Katsuro brat." Sato said to her, which only made her more confused.

"What he has to do with anything? What did he do?" She asked her father. "I don't want to get transferred, and Rei isn't that bad!" She said.

"Miyu…" Sato said with a frown.

"Dad, please. Don't make a mess out of it! I think this team will be good, and besides, all the teams are already full and I think that Kaito's parents would be offended if you will withdraw me from his team." She pleaded. As the heir of her clan, she knew about clan politics and what reputation meant, and she knew how much her father cared about it.

Her father silently looked at her, mentally being frustrated and proud of his daughter, since she was right. The Takeshi family was very popular in the village and loved by its citizens and more importantly, their voice held much weight in the council. He didn't want to get on their bad side.

And if his daughter _wanted_ to stay on this team, he wasn't going to stop her from being on it.

Eventually he sighed in defeat. "Fine, but at least don't get too friendly with the Katsuro kid, please." He said.

"But why?" She asked. What was about Rei that made her parents so worried? Sato and Hanako sent each other a glance before Sato answered.

"He's bad influence. Please, stay away from him." He said and walked away, ending the conversation.

Miyu stood there for a moment, thinking about what just happened before she walked to her room. Apparently Rei hid his skill for the whole four years of the academy and her parents didn't like him for some reason.

'_Katsuro Rei… just who are you?'_ She asked herself while she climbed to the second floor of the large house she lived in.

* * *

Kaito walked into the kitchen and was greeted by his mother and one of his brothers, the other four being on a mission with their father.

His brother, Kenchi looked up from his plate of food and greeted him with a small wave of his hand. Kenchi was taller then Kaito by at least two heads. He looked like he came back from a mission, which was probably the case. His black hair was dirty, and so were his clothes. He still wore his chuunin vest.

"Hey." He said when he swallowed his noodles. "How's your new team?"

"Oh, my new team is awesome! We are totally going to kick a-" He didn't finish the sentence when he noticed the glare his mother sent him. His mother has been very strict when it came down to 'inappropriate language use'.

"Do you want something to eat?" she asked him. Akiko was a mother to five boys. She wore a white apron above her simple beige blouse and a black knee length skirt. She was the only person in the family who didn't have black hair, standing out with her bright sun-colored yellow hair. "Your father should come back soon with your brothers, so you will have to wait for them until you can eat." She added. Kaito noticed his brother's smug expression as he swallowed another portion of his noodles. _'Figures, Kenchi was always mom's favorite…' _Kaito bitterly mused. Kenchi always got to eat whenever he wanted.

"Nah, I already ate with my new teammates." He said happily, remembering the experience.

"Is that so? So c'mon, take a seat and tell us a little about them." Kenchi said and offered him the seat next to him.

"Okay… Miyu is on my team so it's kinda cool to have her." He said while he took his seat. Kenchi chuckled. It was fairly obvious that Kaito had a crush on her, ever since he joined the academy and he couldn't really blame him, half of the other boys in the academy had a crush on her as far as he heard from Kaito's words.

"And the other one is Rei and damn! I didn't know he was so awesome!" Kaito said excitedly, startling Kenchi with his sudden outburst.

"Rei? You mean Katsuro Rei?" Kenchi asked him.

"Hai. Why do you ask?" Kaito asked, wondering why his brother didn't look as cheerful as he did only a moment ago.

"No, its nothing. Go on…" Kenchi said and motioned to him to keep talking.

"Anyway, I didn't even know he could fight like that…" He then went on to tell them all about Rei's fight against Hayato though keeping out the part with Rei's seals, keeping the promise he made to his new teammate. All the while Kenchi and Akiko silently listened, although Kaito noticed the glances they sent each other.

"It sounds like you admire him…" Kenchi said dryly when Kaito finally finished.

"Me? No! its not like that. I just know that he will be very useful on our team!"

"Yes… and you just spent ten minutes telling us how 'awesome' and 'cool' he is."

"Well, if you would've seen how he fights you would think so too!"

"Hmm… should I warn him that he has a fanboy now?" Kenchi said while rubbing his chin, an expression of deep thought on his face.

"No! It's not like that! Don't even think like that!"

"Whatever you say, just don't get too friendly with him. He's not a good choice for a friend, trust me on that." Kenchi said. Kaito noted the seriousness in his voice.

"What do you mean?" He inquired, but before his brother could offer him an answer a large noise from the front door made him stop. A second later a cry of 'We're home!' interrupted them and Kenchi stood up.

"Hoi, dad!" He said loudly and went to greet them with his mother, leaving Kaito alone in the kitchen, wondering what his brother meant.

* * *

Rei opened the door to his small apartment and turned on the light. It was exactly the way he left it. He looked around first, trying to decide what to do. He wasn't hungry and he wasn't tired yet.

Deciding his course of actions he walked to his bed, sat down cross legged and picked off a leaf from a plant that was on his night-stand. He should practice his chakra control; he wasn't in the mood for physical training now.

With a sigh he placed the leaf on his forehead.

* * *

**Perfect. I told you that this one is longer. Next chapter is already in the making, just wait :D Please review!**


	5. Second Chance

**Authors Note: Okay, im back again with a fresh new chapter just written two hours ago! Here it is, hope you will enjoy it and that it will answer some of your unasked questions :)**

* * *

An eight years old Rei was sitting in the clearing, panting and struggling to regain his breath. He spent the entire morning and afternoon preparing himself for the academy he will be attending in just three months. Tsuba asked him if he was willing to become a shinobi, and he gladly agreed to the offer. Now, when he actually started thinking about being a shinobi the requirements came to him like a brick falling on his head. He knew absolutely nothing about being a shinobi, though he knew the basics of the basics. Tsuba once explained to him what chakra was and what it was used for and speaking of chakra, Rei gleefully recalled, Tsuba once said that he was special because he was one of the rare people who could mold chakra in a very young age. Rei discovered that he could mold chakra three years ago; though he couldn't mold it effectively he improved himself in the three years, though he wasn't that talented. He lacked something that Tsuba called 'Chakra control' though he didn't quite explain to him what it was.

Now, that he understood that he practically knew nothing, he didn't want to go to the academy completely unprepared and unable to even throw a shuriken, which was what he was practicing now. Tsuba said that he doest need to know how to mold chakra properly at this age, so he should concentrate on other important things, like building up stamina and using weapons. He was very lucky today, he managed to find several shuriken and kunai in one of the training grounds, they were in poor condition, but they were sharp enough to get imbedded into a tree. He tried buying them, but no shop sold anything to him, claiming that he was too young and that he might kill somebody.

With a sigh he stood up and walked to his targeted tree, frowning the whole time. Only three out of the eight he had had hit the tree, with only two of them getting stuck there. After a minute he gathered all the shuriken and placed him in an old pouch he had and reviewed his training plan.

Now, after weapon throwing training he should build up his stamina, which would be running around. He doubted that the villagers would be very happy if he would be running around, since they didn't even like seeing him walking near them so he would need to be running outside of the walls. He stood there, thinking over his options until he decided: he will run to the mountain gates and back here, which was around four miles running.

"That should be enough I think." He mumbled to himself and started with a light jog towards the direction of the mountain gates, completely unaware that he had a set of eyes laid upon him.

* * *

It took just a little over an hour. He ran back to the same spot he started from and when he reached to the tree he used as a target, he collapsed panting on the ground.

As far as he saw it, he didn't really need to work much on the stamina part, he managed to run the whole way without stopping once, but it exhausted him completely. This was like an obstacle course, first running through the trees, and then through the rocky landscape to the mountain gates and then back to the starting point. Now, after a quick rest, he was going to do more target practice, this time adding some kunais to it. It was really troublesome, but he sincerely thought that if he would keep this up, he will improve in no time.

He leaned against the tree for a few minutes, thinking about how to make the training more effective and if he needs to add more varieties to it but a chuckle broke him from his musing.

"That's quite impressive, for an eight years old kid." A voice said. Rei almost jumped in surprise, frantically looking around until he spotted an old man leaning against a nearby tree.

The man was tall and aging, with several wrinkles on his face. He had graying hair which was tied into a long pony tail. He wore a black long robe with some red markings over standard ninja armor and his hazel eyes were scanning Rei.

Rei stared at him worryingly. He didn't even sense anything, yeah, he might be a little tired but he didn't hear a whisper or see him on his way here. All those facts only lead him to a single conclusion: this man was a shinobi.

"W-what do you want?" He said, not really sure if he could trust him. Whenever shinobi wanted something from him, it wasn't always something good.

"I was just watching you. It's pretty impressive, running all the way from here to the mountain gates and back to here. My guess is that you train for the academy?" He asked him. Rei simply nodded, not knowing what to make of the mysterious stranger.

"In that case, let me tell you one thing. You won't be a shinobi if you keep it this way…" The man said in a rather harsh tone and Rei's eyes widened. "Unless… you will get some help." He finished with a smirk.

Rei almost tilted his head to the side with bafflement. "What do you mean?"

"I'm offering you training. With my help, that academy stuff will look like a child's play after you're done with me."

Now Rei's head really tilted to the side. This is too good to be true. Why would anyone, a ninja above all else, would offer him help? He already noticed that the villagers and some of the shinobi didn't really like him that much, it wasn't serious but they sometimes wouldn't sell him food or would scold him for no apparent reason. But now, one of them was actually coming to him and offering him help.

"What's the catch?" He finally asked him.

"Oh, going straight to the deal? Very well, no catch at all. I want to see if you will survive my training regimen." He simply said. Rei considered his words, trying to find some clue about his intentions though one word was highlighted.

"Survive?" he nervously asked.

"Yes." He said and walked up to him and Rei could take a better look of his face. Now he noticed that some of the wrinkles of his face were actually scars. "My training… is not easy. If you will pass them, I guarantee that these three month you have will make you into a genin level ninja, if you will pass them to begin with." The man said and stopped in front of Rei. "I have nothing to gain except a student and you have everything to gain if you succeed."

Rei considered his words. It was tempting, very tempting. This man was actually the second person to show him kindness, and asking for nothing in return, but it always could be some trick from the villagers or whatever else it could be, but then again, what did he have that he could lose?

"Okay, I agree." Rei said.

"Good, I hoped you would say that. Meet me here at noon tomorrow and we will begin our training." He said and turned to leave.

"Wait." Rei said after him. "How do I call you?" The old man stopped in his tracks and looked over his shoulder.

"Just call me Shinji-sensei." He said and disappeared in a swirl of leaves and wind, leaving Rei standing in the clearing completely alone, wondering if he did the right choice.

* * *

Rei smiled fondly at the memory.

'It was sure worth it' He though as he grinned even wider. He managed to get through the training Shinji put him through, gruesome as it was. And he got stronger in a short period of time; even though he had to keep his progress a secret, for whatever reason he had to. The first thing Shinji asked him to do, is keeping his skills a secret. He protested but it was futile.

Now though, he couldn't keep doing that. Now, his team relied on him and he couldn't afford not getting serious now that they would be doing mission that could be potentially life threatening. He though on that word, 'his team'… maybe he would get to know them better, and they would be his friends… unless they would start ignoring him almost like everyone else did.

He sat on his bed, holding his hitai-ite in his hand, feeling the material with his fingers while staring at it. He finally did it. He always strived to become a shinobi, and now, he was one. Ever since he was a little kid he wanted to become a ninja. Ever since he was a little kid, he felt unwanted and unneeded… like it would be much better if he wouldn't exist. Now, he had a chance to prove them wrong, they would regret classifying him as 'unneeded'.

He stood up and tied his hitai-ite to his head for everyone to see it, the three diagonal wavy lines on a metal plate. The sun already rose up but it was still early and almost no one was awake yet.

He did a quick change of gear, starting with his clothes. He now wore dark blue knee length shorts with many pockets and a black sleeveless hooded shirt. Both his arms hand bandages covering them, from the hand to the elbow and the same with his right leg. He grabbed his pouch filled with shuriken and kunai, ones that Tsuba gave him for his birthday last year, and four braces which were chakra weights.

Yesterday he didn't wear them; he didn't expect to need them. He strapped them to his legs and arms and tested the weight, and nodded to himself. Satisfied, he then went outside for his morning run.

Yesterday he did many mistakes, as Hayato-sensei pointed out. He didn't plan making them again.

'_I guess that after 4 years of hiding my skill level I kinda wanted to show off…'_he explained to himself, though he didn't why. _'…Though it doesn't mean that I have to stop._' He grinned.

* * *

It was almost the time Hayato said he would be waiting for them in that same clearing they were yesterday. Surprisingly, the traps that were set yesterday were gone now and this small forested area was just that, a forested area.

Miyu and Kaito were already there sitting in silence at the edge of the river shore, waiting for everyone to show up. After several minutes Hayato 'poofed' into existence right beside them.

"Good morning. Is everyone here?" He asked cheerily.

"No, Rei isn't here yet." Miyu answered.

"Oh well in that case… oh, here he is." Hayato finished and looked towards the road. Miyu and Kaito turned to look at that direction but the were blinded by a sudden cloud of dust that came from seemingly no where.

When the dust cleared they saw a panting Rei standing there, with a still visible dust train behind him.

"Tell me, do you use chakra to run so fast?" A curious Hayato asked.

"What? How do I do that? I just run with the seal activated…" Rei answered, looking a little confused.

Miyu and Kaito were a little dumbstruck; using chakra to power up your body was one of the basics taught in the academy… Hayato though, felt a chill run up his spine.

'_If he runs this fast now I don't even want to imagine how fast he would be if he will add chakra to his run.'_He mused.

"It will be something I will teach you later, that is, if you will pass the test. The last time the only one who showed what he can do is Rei, while you two were tied up. You should be grateful that I'm giving you a second chance, not many get it." Hayato explained. "I'm giving you five minutes to prepare yourselves… and catch your breath." He said while sending a glance at Rei.

"Hai!" the three students said in unison.

Rei walked up to his teammates and greeted them.

"Ohayou." He said. Kaito greeted him back but Miyu just said a weak 'hey' and turned to look at Hayato.

Rei frowned. He already saw where it was going, though it didn't hurt any less. He sighed. At least Kaito acted normally, though he noticed that he was a little… distant. Still frowning, he sat down on he ground and waited for Hayato to begin.

Exactly five minutes later Hayato came to stand before them and the silent group became even more silent and focused their attention on their sensei. Hayato yawned and started talking.

"Alright, since yesterday only a single member showed me something, ill give another try. Now, what are you going to do?" he paused, rubbing his chin as though deep in thought. "Okay, you will have to land a hit on me. Just a single hit. You have 2 hours and if none of you will hit me even once, you will go back to the academy. But, if you show great me some good skill and potential, I might recommend you to be added to other teams, so you get to go on as a ninja. Is everything understood?" He finished.

"Hai!" The genins said in unison.

"Oh, and one last thing: This time… I will fight back, if the need will arise." Hayato said with a worrying huge smile. "Begin." He barked.

Rei immediately retreated some good ten feet while Kaito and Miyu remained where they were.

'_Idiots! What are they doing? Theres no way they can beat a ninja of this caliber…'_Rei thought.

Hayato chuckled at the scene. _'Looks like Rei understands what he's up against.'_

"Good. Looks like ill manage to get the nap I wanted after all." He said loudly while yawning. These words seemed to piss Kaito and he charged first, which caused Hayato to smirk.

"Don't underestimate me! Doton: Doryu Taiga!" Kaito shouted and the ground beneath Hayato turned into mud, causing him to lose his balance and fight for footing. He then charged forward, intending on delivering a punch to the unbalanced Hayato but when he got there and launched his punch, Hayato easily evaded, grabbed the punch and Kaito's head and sent him face first into his own jutsu.

"Futon: Daitoppa!" A feminine voice cried and Hayato jumped out of the way, just in time for a powerful gust of wind to miss him. Kaito wasn't so lucky. While he was trying to get up the gust of wind caused him to lose footing again and fall again, continually getting thrown backwards.

Hayato landed into a sprint run, easily covering the ground between himself and Miyu but just a few steps away from her he stopped just in time to catch a flying kick from Rei, swinging him above himself and smashing him into the grassy ground. Before Hayato could do anything he felt another strong gust of wind hit him. It didn't wound hi but it forced him away.

Rei got up, seemingly unwounded, and locked stares with Hayato.

'_This guy barely has any openings… and when he shows one, it's a damn trap.'_ He thought.

Hayato still stood there unmoving and yawning. Rei had to admit that it started to irritate him. He wasn't taking them seriously at all!

Without warning, or any indication whatsoever, Kaito jumped out of the ground, delivering a spinning kick to Hayato's side. Kaito cheered, seeing that he actually managed to land a hit, but the beaming smile disappeared when Hayato suddenly disappeared in a puff of smoke. Before Kaito could even land a hand burst out of the ground and pulled him down into the ground, both of them disappearing from sight.

Rei and Miyu looked nervously about, searching for either Kaito or Hayato. There was a muffled sound, like someone screaming and then the ground burst out, sending stone and dust into the ground, Kaito among them. He rolled to his back, groaning in pain and holding his forehead, presumably where Hayato hit him.

This unnerved Rei even more, Kaito was here, but Hayato was still there! He was about to warn Miyu when Hayato jumped out of the ground, much like Kaito, and kicked him in the side of the head, sending him flying a few feet before eventually landing. From the yelp he heard he guessed that Miyu was kicked too.

Rubbing his bruise Rei got up again and looked at the situation. They were already wounded, nothing serious but wounded, and Hayato didn't even have a spec of dirt on him.

"Well, what do you say? Don't you think it's _my_ turn to go offensive?" he said, evilly grinning while dropping into a fighting stance. Rei visibly paled. So far, he knew that Hayato's defenses were amazing, and he could hit pretty painfully… he didn't know how he attacked, nor did he really want to find out.

Starting to feel the familiar feeling of depleting chakra and sudden power in his muscles, he formed a single handseal, deactivating his weights, he picked up Miyu and rushed to pick up Kaito, with a screaming and complaining Miyu over his shoulder.

Hayato actually laughed at the scene, right before attacking but luckily for the genins, he was too slow. With Rei's seal powered speed he managed to cover the distance faster then Hayato, picking up Kaito without even slowing and disappearing in the brush.

Hayato stopped and smirked. This was getting more interesting.

* * *

"Put me down!" Miyu screamed for perhaps the twentieth time.

"Shut up! He might hear us!" Rei retorted. Kaito groaned, whether from annoyance or pain, Rei wasn't sure.

Hoping that he was far enough, he stopped and placed both his teammates on the ground. Kaito sat down, still rubbing his head. And Miyu leaned against a tree, looking a little dizzy, and green.

Rei chuckled at this, remembering what happened a few minutes ago.

* * *

A few minutes ago:

"Damn! Slow down! Its way too fast!" Miyu screamed as she watched the trees they passed near, too near in her opinion.

"I'm not slowing! No way, that maniac will kill us; my face still hurts from when he smashed me into the ground!" Rei answered.

"How the hell do you even manage to steer yourself like that?" She asked him. "I mean, how do you turn in time instead of running into a tree?"

"Oh, well it takes getting used to. When I just started using them I ran into trees on few occasions but not anymore, though considering that I'm not balanced now, carrying you two it might happen again…"

"Put me down! NOW!" Miyu screamed again.

* * *

"I think it's far enough." Rei mumbled while looking at the direction where they left Hayato.

"How the hell are we supposed to hit him? It's like he has eyes on the back of his head." Kaito said.

"I don't know… this whole test seems suspicious. There's no way we can hit him." Rei spoke, getting annoyed stares from both of his teammates. "I gave him everything I had yesterday; he either blocked or avoided everything. He's too good. We need to try something else."

"Well, he saw everything you had, didn't he?" Kaito asked.

"Almost… I still have a couple of techniques or so, but two of them are defensive, so it won't really help us that much. And I can't surprise him this time with my speed; he expects it and reacts way too good to be human." Rei lamented.

"So what do we do?" Miyu finally spoke.

"What else? Were going to work up a plan, and luckily for us, I'm already thinking of one."

"Great! Let me think of something… I think I have an idea too." Kaito said with a smile.

"First of all, we need to stop him from moving." Miyu said. "I can't hit him with any jutsu like that if he keeps dodging and he can attack any of us if we won't take care of it." Miyu added.

"I think I can take care of that, though it won't hold him for long." Kaito said.

"Good. Okay, let's share our plans. Here's what I have…"  


* * *

**A/N: So whats the plan? You'll find out next chapter :) Okay, this was shorter then the last one, much shorter but hopefully just as good, if not better. Please review! :D**


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